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Comment by willvarfar | Hacker News Reader

It feels so weird to scroll down and see the product sheet with feet and inches. And is the plane really only 99 inches long?

Is metric used to actually design the plane, or does Skunkworks still use US customary measurements?

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The diagram confusingly lists the length as 99'7 in. Don't know why they mixed the single tick (feet) and written inches notation.

Your question did make me think of the Boom XB-1; a scaled down version of a passenger jet that I'm skeptical will ever fly commercially.

Ah! I think I've seen that in person! This plane?

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp-YjLNDUf6/

Given that it’s 14ft tall, I’d say no, though I agree they could’ve made it clearer. It says 99’7 In, or 99 feet and 7 inches (ideally, it would be 99’7”).

Weird design I think, I think it means to be 99 ft. long, but the label isn't there...

> And is the plane really only 99 inches long?

Can it fly from New York’s Idlewild Airport to the Belgian Congo in 17 minutes?

It's better than football fields ar least

Nah, 1,383/5,000th football fields (US) should be pretty clear to most people.

I thought exactly the same thing.

> And is the plane really only 99 inches long?

I'm guessing it should read 99ft 7in. That would put it at just over 3m, which still seems pretty small to me.

99ft 7in is 30.353m

"Hey Siri, what is 99ft 7in in meters"

My trick to convert to meters from feet is: just convert it to yards and ignore the difference.

Convert to yards and subtract 10%.

Easy mental math and much closer.

Or just go straight to 30%? (Take 10% & multiply by 3)

Seems easier to remember the one number than 'divide by 3 for yards then subtract 10% for meters', assuming you have no use for yards. (I use yards colloquially, but never as a measurement.)

> I'm guessing it should read 99ft 7in.

Yep.

> That would put it at just over 3m

Nope.

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